The Dark Side Of The Head
by Mischa1
Summary: Sense is supernatural. In the action of a raid, the enemy is illusion...


The Dark Side Of The Head  
  
by Mischa  
  
Summary: Sense is supernatural. In the action of a raid, the enemy is illusion...  
  
Disclaimer: As this is an X-Files fic, of course they're not mine. All the property of Chris Carter, 1013, etc., etc. No infringement intended.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Guns drawn.  
  
Oh, no, you won't regret this.  
  
Shoulder forcing down a door, the wood splintering under impact of flesh and bone. The first cracking sound, breaking. Harmless. Remember the stance? The exercises have taught you well. Step slowly, slowly around the corner. Focus. Around the side... who knows?  
  
//rush of feet frantic call beyond the darkness you will --//  
  
Clear.  
  
Breathe.  
  
Empty room. Adrenalin still rushes out, seeking pathways in its disappointment. Heart still beating, frantically. Muscles twitching, only intense focus and practice keeping the trigger finger from pulling. Your feet still wish to move but calm, calm... he was there hewasthere hewassupposedtobe... there...  
  
Instinct taught you to tune into your partner's thoughts -- hard to believe, isn't it? That you, the sceptic, would really believe in that. But he warns you and there, at the edge of consciousness. Something present. Turn your head, ignoring the fall of reddened hair across the line of your sight, blue gaze blazing across the room. Something's there. You can't see it but you can sense it -- is sense a supernatural occurrance? The fact that we see -- colours and sensations firing into neurons, establishing as a picture in the mind's eye...  
  
//what we see is not what we see, only what our brains *tell* us we see.//  
  
It's there. Around in the dark side of your head you know it's there.  
  
Would deliberate movement startle it, that haze of nothingness suspended in the room? You can see it, can't you? That suspended waterfall of shimmering air, just waiting. Maybe it thinks you can't see it. Take another creeping step. Another. Breathing slows, as does heartbeat, every move suspending itself into liquid animation, stepping slowly, one breath two breaths three breaths four --  
  
At the edge of your sight, darkness pools and moves, slipping across the floor. Your gaze follows it immediately, snapping your weapon towards it. Are you just chasing after that dark side? you wonder. If you snap your head around fast enough, would your eyes manage to focus on that dark, warm pool of brain and thought you're only ever half conscious is there? How fast would you need to turn? How welcoming would that soft depth be? Like night? Like fumbling warmth? How easy would it be to just descend in --  
  
You call your partner's name, you hear him call yours. Both trying not to sound nervous, but oh, you do. But it seems so far away, like you're both separate entities... you're not one anymore, his voice isn't in the back of your head.  
  
You're on your own. Somehow... you've split from your world into this one, wherever *here* is. Somehow you know.  
  
It's still there, every time you turn, that pool of black lurking in the corners of your gaze. When you spin around quickly you see it in its entirety, the figure of a man not quite a man, a walking figure of oil that dives away and spins and blends into the floor and you need to snap your head so quickly just to catch it...  
  
This raid, such a game! *They* sent you here! Too much, you have to *stop*!  
  
Of course it's all in your head, when the dizziness shoots up behind your eyes and bursts into blooming pain in your head and strikes your vision and all you see is that darkness pooling together, rising up before you, clouding your sight, wrapping itself around the space beyond. Sense is supernatural; that cold slippery surface sliding across the hairs on the back of your hand isn't really there. That bitter smell of ache and bile assaulting your throat, all imagination. Isn't it?  
  
Breathe.  
  
Even if you can taste it.  
  
You know what's real -- calm shattered panic trigger finger tightening blast of flame and spark and reflex throwing you across the room.  
  
//what we see is not what we see//  
  
So that haze of red passing beyond the clutch of your twitching fingers is not your blood, it's only what your brain tells you is your blood. Yes. It's all in your head. That dull, searing pain in the back of your head, merely a sense.  
  
//what we feel is not what we feel//  
  
That bitterness rising in your throat, no, none of that's real. You're not really dying. You're not.  
  
//only what our brains *tell* us we sense...//  
  
What do you want to believe?  
  
~ an end 


End file.
